Watering down an ambitious project

Ssunset is reflected in the Middle River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

April 3, 2016 6:06 PM PT

Advocates of building two 40-mile tunnels under the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta have long argued that they would increase water deliveries to agriculture and thirsty cities to the south. But new realities show that forecast is no longer true.

Giant pumps at the federal C.W. “Bill” Jones Pumping Plant near Tracy, Calif.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

Armando Godina empties a bucket into a sorting tray at a fish collection facility near Tracy, Calif.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

Rene Reyes, a biologist at the federal fish collection facility near Tracy, Calif, holds a silverside, one of the species found in a fish count.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

Golden shiners swim in a tank at the federal fish collection facility near Tracy, Calif.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

Conservation biologist Jonathan Rosenfield is pictured near the Middle River in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Instead of flowing north toward San Francisco Bay, as nature intended, the Middle is heading south.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)